Deplorable living conditions worsened by lack of support, experts say

Tara Carman, Vancouver Sun09.12.2012

Marble Arch hotel is being renovated one of the SROs being renovated by the province starting next month to address deplorable conditions there here in Vancouver in September 11, 2012Mark van Manen
/ Vancovuer Sun

Marble Arch hotel is being renovated one of the SROs being renovated by the province starting next month to address deplorable conditions there here in Vancouver in September 11, 2012Mark van Manen
/ Vancovuer Sun

Vancouver Councillor Kerry Jang says funds provided by BC Housing are not enough to make needed repairs in buildings caught in a cycle of damage and abuse.. In this file photo: Jang stands inside Chinatown's Lim Sai Hor Kow Mock Benevolent Association building at Carroll near East Pender in Vancouver, B. C., April 28, 2010.Arlen Redekop
/ Vancouver Sun

Vancouver Counc. Kerry Jang says funds provided by BC Housing are not enough to make needed repairs in buildings caught in a cycle of damage and abuse..Jason Payne
/ PNG

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Decrepit and unsafe living conditions are inevitable when people with severe mental health and substance abuse problems are housed in buildings run by non-profits without the funding to provide critical supports, a Vancouver mental health expert said Tuesday.

Dr. Michael Krausz, a professor of psychiatry at the University of B.C. and the author of the province’s Health of the Homeless survey report, was responding to a CBC news story in which former residents and staff complained of revolting conditions and blatant criminal activity in publicly owned social housing residences run by Atira Property Management.

The allegations included feces, urine and dirty needles in hallways, clogged and filthy plumbing, mould and insect infestations, staff getting high or falling asleep on the job and blatant drug use and prostitution within the buildings.

The buildings involved were among 26 privately owned hotels — 24 in Vancouver — acquired by BC Housing between 2007 and 2009 for use as social housing. Several non-profits, including Atira, were contracted to run them. BC Housing retained responsibility for major upgrades and maintenance while the non-profit contractors oversee day-to-day maintenance, including electrical, and pest control.

The City of Vancouver, responsible for inspecting the properties, has pursued private landlords through the courts for consistently allowing their buildings to fall into states of disrepair, but Coun. Kerry Jang said the city does not consider non-profits such as Atira to be slum landlords.

Many of the buildings were old and some were in terrible shape when the non-profits took over their operation, Jang said, and while some private owners have repeatedly ignored city orders to make repairs, the non-profit operators have generally been cooperative.

“When the building is tenanted by folks with some significant ... mental health and addiction problems, once something’s repaired it gets broken again, it gets trashed. It’s a never-ending cycle at times,” he said.

Moreover, Jang said that the funds provided the operators by BC Housing are often insufficient to make the needed repairs, especially when the same things need to be fixed over and over again

BC Housing invested $65 million in renovating the 26 properties when it acquired them, but this funding was only enough to address immediate safety and security concerns — such as installing fire escapes — in the buildings in the most critical condition, Craig Crawford, BC Housing’s vice-president of operations, said in a statement Tuesday.

The province is providing $87 million, with an additional $29 million from the federal government, to conduct major renovations on 13 single-room Downtown Eastside hotels, starting with the Marble Arch hotel on Richards Street next month. The funding was announced in March and the hotels cited in the CBC report are among those that will be renovated, Crawford said.

But it is not enough to merely put a roof over people’s heads, said Krausz. It is important to note that the people who live in these buildings suffer from complex combinations of mental illness and psychological trauma and are often chronic substance abusers.

“Single-room occupancy hotels are not mental health housing, are not really equipped or funded [to support] mental illness or addiction,” he said. “A lot of the time there isn’t any kind of specific support services in place.”

Krausz is one of the principal researchers with the national At Home/Chez Soi project, which explores the effect of providing these vulnerable populations with a combination of housing and support services. The three-year study, which ends in March, is funded by the federal government at a cost of $110 million.

Vancouver accounts for about $25 million of that funding, Krausz said. About 100 people living in the Bosman hotel who are being offered health care and community support services as part of the study are showing significant improvement compared to a control group who have not been offered any intervention, Krausz said.

“They only stabilize if you have appropriate support,” he said.

Paying for such supportive housing does cost more than simply putting a roof over people’s heads, Krausz said, but when the savings in terms of police enforcement, emergency-room treatment and prison time are taken into account, it also works out to a good deal for the taxpayer.

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